Impairing and monitoring glucose catabolite repression in L-carnitine biosynthesis

Signal transduction pathways are usually avoided when optimizing a biotransformation process because they require complex mathematical formulations. The aim of this work was to use a Systems Biology approach to optimize and monitor the biotransformation of L-carnitine using signal transduction pathways. To this end, a dynamic model was constructed, integrating the metabolic pathways of L-carnitine biosynthesis as well as the expression of this metabolism by means of its regulation by transcription factors such as cAMP-CRP and CaiF. The model was validated using different C-sources as well as different reactor feeding approaches. A linear relationship between the external cellular cAMP and the L-carnitine production levels was predicted before being experimentally confirmed in several scenarios. Moreover, results of the model simulations and subsequent experimental findings demonstrated that the addition of exogenous cAMP was able to restore the L-carnitine production when glucose was used as C-source. Additionally, a way to monitor the L-carnitine biosynthesis by using the level of cAMP as a marker of the biotransformation state was in silico and experimentally demonstrated.